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The implication being doing the same to their country, obviously.
Why would that be the implication? There's nothing in that statement that suggests it would be the case, calling it "obvious" doesn't make it so.
The equivalent action of Russia interfering with the West's population is obviously the West interfering with the Russian population. If you want to say you were implying Western interference in its own population, sure, then you could've made that clearer. Nothing changes though because we still don't control information or punish opposing views internally as they do, obviously.
But feel free to send as much evidence of Western bot farms as I can easily send of Russian ones.
But the group of people we were talking about about being influenced was Americans, so it would be fairly natural to assume that I was talking about them influencing our own population, or that I was leaving it ambiguous. If you wanted to jump to the conclusion otherwise, you should've clarified.
I have no idea why were're limiting "propaganda" to "bot farms" which aren't a particularly effective form of it. Every US media outlet has a vested interest in falling in line behind what the president wants because otherwise they could be refused access to things like press briefings, something Trump is especially blatant about. The US media was fully supportive of the Iraq war and published countless lies promoting it, the NYT made up a story about "mass rapes" claimed to be conducted by Palestinians to justify the government's support for the war, going back further, into periods where we have access to declassified stuff, the US government literally had a mind control program called MK Ultra specifically about trying to brainwash people.
Of course, it has also conducted misinformation campaigns in other countries. Recently, the US government was spreading COVID/vaccine disinformation in the Philippines. During the Iranian coup that ousted democratic leader Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of a right-wing dictator, the CIA admitted that it had taken control of virtually every newspaper and media outlet in the country, used to manufacture discontent. If they can stuff like overseas, then they can do it at home too.
Furthermore, these intelligence agencies have interests that are more directly contrary to the American people than the Russian government does. They represent the interests of the rich, and the US rich are the most direct and primary enemy of the US poor. And yet, I never hear any libs express even the slightest ounce of concern that the most well funded intelligence network in the world, with an atrocious historical record showing that they have both the means and motive to suppress democracy, might be something to be concerned about. We should only worry about a less well-funded, less connected intelligence community with less directly opposed interests, because, what? They're foreigners?
If your statements are ambiguous then, don't be surprised if people pick one of the more obvious possible meanings. I'm not the one who has to clarify your statements. Regardless, nothing changes. Russian influences both their domestic and western populations more than the West influences their domestic or Russian populations. The West has freedom of information flows the likes of which the Russians have never known in their whole useless, pillaging, and degenerate existence. Even under clowns like Trump, the US press is more free than Russia's.
I wouldn't use the trash that Trump pulls as valid examples of how the West acts, US leaders don't typically threaten allies with takeover or bend over to Russia. He's indisputably an anti-western piece of shit that falls into the same bucket as Putin. Other than that, try not to fetch US examples from the cold war as valid comparisons to contemporary actors like Putin, otherwise it just seems like you're stretching. It's been generations, expectations of international behavior aren't the same.
Really? Russian kleptocracy aligns more with its population and doesn't represent the interests of the rich? The country that still lacks indoor plumbing for ~20% of the population? The country that is throwing its people into the meat grinder to steal foreign land? Good one.
Because they're destroying democracies in your region. "less directly opposed interests"? only if you're a vatnik lmao. If you are though, feel free to buy the first ticket to Moscovia, assuming you're not there already.
Which again raises the question of why Russian propaganda is so much more effective in the Western media environment where they can't censor things or control shit than Western propaganda is. See, you're distracted by a need to say, "Russia is the bad guy" that you're losing sight of the actual question.
No present or historical examples then, got it.
When did the US reform and change it's ways? Did a president stand up to the CIA and tell them to cut it out? Which one, when? Was anyone in the intelligence community held accountable for their actions and actually punished? Who, when?
Or did the US stop doing evil stuff right around the window of time where documents would not yet be declassified?
Putting aside all of that, even if I accepted your absurd constraints, I also raised points that fit your criteria, regarding the war in Iraq. Things that track with a consistent pattern of behavior before and after.
I never said anything like that. What I said is that Russian kleptocracy is less directly opposed to the interests of the American people than the US kleptocracy is. The Russian oligarchs don't suppress our wages, bust our unions, and gouge our prices, not because there's any kind of moral difference but because they're not in a position to do so. The American oligarchs are the ones with both the means and motive to hurt the American people, they are, therefore, the primary enemy of the people, moreso than Russian oligarchs are to us. It's not about one group being morally superior to another.
In "my region?" My region is about as far away from Ukraine as it's possible to be on planet Earth.
No, you're just asking dumb shit for the sake of asking it. The West just isn't shitting out propaganda on its population the way Russia is, it's not hard to understand.
They don't because they're not in charge of your fucking country. But they do all that shit and worse to their own population. Russian kleptocracy is incomparably worse to whatever equivalent you want to draw in the US. Wtf are you on about.
Which might explain why you're so blissfully ignorant of the Russian scourge.
A KGB agent visits America and meets a CIA agent, and says, "I'm so excited to learn from the American methods of propaganda!" The CIA agent responds, "What? But in America, we have no propaganda!" KGB agent slams on the table and says, "Yes! Exactly like that!"
I already cited numerous examples of US propaganda and dinsinformation which included ones that fit your arbitrary criteria of neither too recent nor too old. There's also shit like this recruitment ad that's pretty open and explicit about manipulating public opinion. Also like we explicitly have psyop divisions. It's also just a completely absurd idea, we don't do propaganda because, what, we're "the good guys?" Not how the world works lol, incredibly naive take.
Please stop telling me things I just told you. Literally in the part you quoted and were responding to, I said, "because they’re not in a position to do so."
But I'm not part of that population.
Again, you're misunderstanding me. I'm in no way claiming a moral difference between Russian and American billionaires, I'm merely pointing out that the more direct enemy of the American people are the set of billionaires with the means and motive to exploit us, namely, American billionaires.
More importantly, it would explain why Americans in general were always bound to lose interest in the conflict and give up on it, we just had to waste a bunch of blood and treasure on the conflict pretending otherwise first.
I don't remember you citing anything that falls into the criteria, which isn't arbitrary btw, it should be obvious that it's fucking stupid to rely on examples from decades ago if you're comparing it to another nations current actions.
Are you actually comparing a recruitment ad to Russia's media manipulation, crackdowns, and foreign interference? kill me
Good thing I didn't say any of that shit. If you could stop building strawmen out of my arguments because you can't actually tackle any of them, that would be great.
Then stop saying stupid shit if you're not making any substantive points? What's the point of saying they don't do shit to you because they're not in a position to do so? wow, thanks for the enlightening insight.
Bro, this isn't about YOU. If you want to objectively compare how each government treats their own population, then the fact that the foreign government doesn't affect YOU isn't fucking relevant you moron (even though they do affect you via election interference/propaganda, but sure).
COVID misinformation in the Philippines? The rampant lies leading up to the Iraq War? Those things fit your criteria.
Also, don't try to pretend that you're only excluding historical examples, you're also excluding recent examples, because "Trump isn't representative of America." Who knows what you'll exclude next, maybe Bush isn't representative either because he lied and that contradicts your worldview.
Also very funny to me that you'll exclude history from like 40 years ago but cite history from 80 years ago (WWII) as still relevant.
If you were able to shut down the hyper-partisan moralistic urge to constantly opine on who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are long enough to actually listen to anything I'm saying and look at reality as it is, then you'd understand my point. As it is, you've missed it completely.
I'm not interested in discussing, like, who's more likely to get into fucking heaven. Christ. It's completely and totally irrelevant to the conversation.
If one person has a gun pressed against my head, and another person doesn't, then I'm more concerned about the guy with the gun against my head than the other guy. Maybe the other guy is a worse person, maybe the guy with a gun to my head volunteers at the soup kitchen every day and the other guy kicks puppies, but my concern is removing the gun from my head.
What I'm saying is that American billionaires have a gun to the head of the American people in a way that Russian billionaires don't. And your response is to talk about how the Russian billionaires are bad people and have guns to other people's heads. Irrelevant to the conversation.
Yeah, it's not about me specifically. It's about my class, which has the same material interests as me. If you want to write off my class because it's "not about us" then, you know, good luck in the next election.
I don't, thanks. Why would I? I'm interested in pursuing political objectives that help me and my class. I'm not interested in evaluating each country moralistically and then picking a team to stan like it's football or something.
It's funny to you because you're too stupid to know the difference between comparing similar tactics used between Hitler and Putin VERSUS using ancient-ass cold war events to justify a contemporary opinion.
Well it seemed like you were very much willing to carrying water for the actions of the Russian state by saying that the US does the same things, if not even worse. Suddenly you have no interest in comparing them? Try having the ability to follow a conversation before engaging in one.
If the cold war is "ancient ass" what does that make Hitler? "Prehistoric ass?"
Completely arbitrary, of the example serves your position is fine, if it serves my position it doesn't count. You're just throwing out anything and everything that doesn't confirm your preconceived beliefs.
You telling me to "try having the ability to follow a conversation" is pretty rich considering how you're constantly losing the plot and getting distracted by moralizing, like you're doing here. You assumed that my goal was to "carry water for" the Russian state by talking about the bad things the US does. No, not really. I don't particularly care which is worse between the two, at no point have I ever attempted to make that case. You assumed that was my angle, because that's how you see the world, but that's not how I see the world and I've told you that over and over again.
I'll try to explain again since once doesn't seem to be enough. It's not about how old the examples are. You were using OLD examples to justify an opinion on the US NOWADAYS, while I was merely pointing out the similarities between Putin and Hitlers tactics. The difference between these two should be obvious.
keep shooting out this tired slogan. I've just been stating facts. I don't give a fuck if your goal is to carry water for them or not, you made comparisons regardless so don't suddenly pretend as if comparing them came out of nowhere or isn't relevant to the topic.
The reason you assumed I was trying to carry water for Russia is that you assume I think in the same nonsense terms that you do, viewing geopolitics through this inane lens of "good guys" and "bad guys" like it's a Saturday morning cartoon. In reality, they're all ruthlessly self-interested and neither Russia nor the US has any interest in improving the lives of ordinary people (as I already told you, when I said Russian billionaires don't exploit me only because they lack the power to do so). The correct way to view such conflicts is through the lens of realpolitik.
To give a historical example, in the American Revolution, the revolutionaries were supported by the French monarchy. France's absolute monarchy was less democratic than Britain's, and obviously the French king did not support the revolution because he supported it's ideals. The French only wanted the revolution to succeed in order to weaken Britain. The British colonists lobbied for and happily accepted the French support, realizing that, even if the French king was just as bad as the British king, the British government was the one exploiting them, while they had a common enemy with the French government.
In the same way, I have no illusions about Russian capitalists or the Russian government being in some way "morally superior" or "the good guys," but I also recognize that the American billionaires and government are the ones exploiting me, and are therefore my most direct and primary enemy.
If you want to persuade me from that position, then you need to be able to make the case that supporting the American capitalists/government against the Russians is somehow in line with my material class interests. Preferably without relying on a single historical example from 80 years ago which has been cited over and over again to justify disasterous wars that made things worse for everyone.
And if you can't make that case to me, then you won't be able to make it to a broad audience. And if you can't make it to a broad audience, eventually, you will be unable to get elected on a platform that includes support for it, and Ukraine will be abandoned. And if Ukraine is going to be abandoned anyway, then it's better to avoid prolonging the war for no reason, because it just means more people will die.
Not sure why you think this hyper-cynical teenage view is any less of an inane and immature lens than "saturday morning cartoons"
That's just your opinion.
I never positioned the conversation as being about who is exploiting YOU more though. You keep inserting your own personal interests as if it should be the compass when comparing the US and Russia, idk why.
No time for tankie bs, sorry. If you can't already see how the US gov is incomparably better to what Russia has to over the world then you're too far gone.
I'm not a celebrity or a pundit, I'm not here to sell my case to a "broad audience", I just talk to individuals.
"We should abandon it because it's going to be abandoned anyway" is circular logic nonsense. The point should be people realizing that it's best, even just for their own self-interest, for Ukraine to win.
You have no idea if supporting or surrendering would result in more or less deaths. Don't pretend to know.
"People persue their own interests" is not a "hyper-cynical teenage view" lmao.
Again, it's not about me, it's about my class.
And it's not a "compass for comparing the US and Russia." Compare them all you like, it doesn't concern me. What does concern me are, you know, my class interests. If you want to ask me to set aside my own interests in favor of your opinions about morality, then you have to make the case for why I should.
No, it's seeing the writing on the wall. I don't control public opinion, I can't change the fact that people are losing and will continue to lose interest in Ukraine, that's just a fact of life. And given that that's going to happen, the best thing to do is to cut losses as soon as possible.
Then make the case, because you haven't. All you've done is talk about how they're the bad guys and pulled out an unrelated example from 80 years ago that's resulted in disaster every time it's been used as an example.
Of course I do. I mean, to the extent that it's possible to predict any events. It's the deaths from surrendering versus the deaths from surrendering plus the deaths from however long the war keeps going.
pretending that everyone does this to the same extent is what makes it a hyper-cynical teenage view.
spare me the tankie cringe
If I'm just comparing how shit the Russian gov is vs the US gov, your interests aren't relevant in the first place.
Do you live under a fucking rock? Do you need it explained to you why failing to stand up to this invasion might encourage others (like China->Taiwan)? Why stability/security in the West/World is vital for prosperity and won't be possible unless Russia is defeated, given that they've spent most of the time under this regime by being raping & pillaging shits?
Hubris? Yet you think it was super difficult to predict Trumps relationship to Project 2025 lmao. Tell me, how do you know that supporting Ukraine properly doesn't result in Russia's defeat in, say another year or that surrendering them doesn't result in death camps all over Ukraine for years? Fuck off with your "off course I do". Now go back to reading whatever tankie trash that's been rotting your brain as you're clearly only interested in bad faith debate and juggling semantics.
Lmao. Even just talking about class is tankie, apparently.
I'm not, and that wasn't what the conversation was about.
"Defeating Russia" sounds extremely destabilizing. Do you genuinely want to eliminate the country through military force? That's completely insane, they're a nuclear power, you'll end all life on earth. There will be no "security" "stability" or "prosperity" in a nuclear wasteland.
So possibility A is a nuclear wasteland, possibility B is just letting them have the country and going on with our lives. I'll take option B, thanks.
Never said this, you're lying. What I said was that it was difficult to convince voters to connect Project 2025 to Trump.
I'll forgive your lie because it seems like you're genuinely incapable of distinguishing between those two propositions, but if you continue lying about what I said, I'm walking away. Lies are a pet peeve.
Because of my assessment of the situation. It's a stalemate, there's no realistic possibility of them reclaiming all their lost territory in the next year. Russia will win a stalemate because they're more materially invested in the conflict than the US. Eventually, the US will get bored and stop caring about it, Russia won't.
How do you know Ukraine winning wouldn't result in death camps all over Ukraine for years?
Not sure why you pulled this absurd strawman out of your ass. Who said anything about "eliminating"? They can just fuck off back to their own country, it's not that hard.
You said "nobody could've predicted that Trump would put project 2025 heads into government". So shove your forgiveness up your ass you tankie clown. Don't patronize me.
Oh is this your expert military opinion? Pfft.
Did you forget that I said "supporting Ukraine properly" or are you just selectively blind?
Which side has leaders with warrants for genocide again? If that question isn't proof that you're a bad faith clown just saying nonsense for the sake of debate, idk what is.
That's a lie. Link the comment where you think I said that.
Is what you actually said, I didn't recall it too well but I wasn't "lying". Knowing he was going to put them in government was easily predictable to anyone with open eyes. Buying the "Trump distanced himself from project 2025" bs is pure retardation.
These distinctions completely change the meaning. "Being able to predict" vs "being able to prove to a broad population" are completely different things. Of course it could be predicted, I certainly did, but that doesn't resolve the question of how you get the message out on a large scale and convince people of it. Even if you and I could see through it, he still had plausible deniability, making it not necessarily the most compelling angle to hit people with.
Should be easy, given that the US has a much stronger propaganda platform than Russia no? /s
It's almost as if despite this being shown across all media, a massive amount of voters were still manipulated by foreign & right-wing propaganda into ignoring/dismissing it.
Of course, the US government has a stronger propaganda platform in the US than Russia has in the US. Political parties are not the US government though, so it's not really relevant to how a political party can promote a message.
Or they just didn't see it or pay attention or they didn't believe Trump would do it based on their own reasoning. People can believe different things from you without the need to insert a malicious actor to explain the disagreement.
But ok, your position is that nobody has both the willingness or capability to counter foreign/right-wing propaganda. So, as I've asked several times now, what is your solution to this situation? Because it seems like your solution is just to whine about it.
There's nothing "of course" about this statement. All evidence points to Russia having a better handle on the US population's opinion than the US.
I'm not here to generate solutions, no idea why you keep asking for one. The US has a unique issue with propaganda because of the first amendment, there's no easy solution other than people smartening up and social media companies taking more responsibility for their content via fact checkers etc.
Then your political position is worthless on it's face.
You can point out an issue without pretending to have a solution. Do you read the retarded shit you type?
Yeah, if your goal is just to wallow in misery and jack off about how right you (think you) are.
Most conversations are about the how and why of a subject. Most of the work towards figuring out proper solutions is accurately identifying what's wrong in the first place, which you won't be able to do by larping as a revolutionary in your basement when you can't even figure out what to do when it comes to Ukraine. Nobody is waiting for your delusional dogshit "solutions". Newsflash, "just eat the rich" as advice for Kamala when brainlet voters preferred a claque of billionaires is some of the most retarded shit I've heard. Get a clue.